


Tax Dollars Well Spent

by JJavierr



Series: Catboy Ryan [1]
Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series)
Genre: Catboy Ryan Bergara, Crack Treated Seriously, Domestic Fluff, First Meetings, Fluff, M/M, Mentions Of Past Drugging, Mentions of kidnapping, Mentions of past abuse, Mild Angst with a happy ending, Miscommunication, No beta we die like mne, Protective Shane Madej, unbetaed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-08
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-14 10:34:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29915577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JJavierr/pseuds/JJavierr
Summary: “You know something that’s been on my mind since the incident?”“What?”“...Why is the government… manufacturing catboys…?”“...I… I don’t know…”“...”“...”
Relationships: Ryan Bergara/Shane Madej
Series: Catboy Ryan [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2199849
Comments: 1
Kudos: 25





	Tax Dollars Well Spent

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [BFU Art (2)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29724963) by [Sonzaishinai](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sonzaishinai/pseuds/Sonzaishinai). 



> Just something I hastily wrote. This was eventually going to involve smut but I didn't feel like it settled right anywhere in the fic so this is just going to be the first in a series of two unrelated fanfictions involving catboy Ryan, this one domestic, the next one smutty.
> 
> I don't know if it's right to say that this was inspired by Sonzaishinai's catboy Ryan drawing either because that is actually NSFW and this isn't, but the next will, but regardless, I agreed with the sentiment that we need to bring catboy Ryan back into the limelight and wrote this.
> 
> Assume that sometime along the line, we get confirmation that the the facility that originally held Ryan no longer desires to pursue him. And that Ryan reestablishes himself again with his friends and family and definitely not a missing person.
> 
> I didn't really plan this out, okay, this was going to be smut.
> 
> Enjoy.

Shane was a good person. He was nice to strangers and friends, he paid his taxes, he was always on time with his rent, he had good credit, and the list could go on and on. He was just an average Buzzfeed employee, working hard to pay off those student loans. Y’know?

Well, this is how god fucking repays him, he guesses as he picks up the bat he had lying under his bed having startled awake at the sounds of chaos erupting in his kitchen and Obi perking up on his chest, also wondering who the fuck was in his apartment at— Shane glanced at his analog clock— at 3AM and also, how in the hell they got inside.

  
And then because shit wasn’t fucked enough, what he found when he go there, quickly turning on the lights to startle the intruder was… some jacked (and admittedly attractive) frat boy looking guy wearing a  _ large _ shirt (his shirt! That he had hanging out to dry!) crouched on his kitchen counter looking like SHANE was the intruder and it was HIS kitchen! And to top it all off, this weird, now frozen in place by the way, had some fuckin- some weird ass cat-ear headbands on his head! And some furry substitute for a tail wrapped tight around the corner of his fridge while he tried to squeeze in and make himself look small!

Seriously! What the fuck!

“Who are you and how did you get in!?” Shane yelled, panicked. Not that he didn’t appreciate the eye candy of this dude, but?? This was a possibly bare assed home intruder with his butt planted on Shane’s counter, and you can’t really blame Shane for not wanting that right now! Not at 3AM when he was awoken to the potential threat of death!

He followed the dude’s scared eyes, flitting between him and the open balcony doors. Ah. This fucker. He probably felt Shane’s animosity as he stomped over to the doors and promptly shut them, locking the stranger in. He was starting to turn a little pale.

“You have three seconds,” Shane said, holding out his phone. “Three seconds or I’m going to call the police, buddy, and I  _ will _ fight you if I have to, weird getup and all. I’m serious.”

The guy jumped like he’d been sent an electric shock immediately and thrust out his hands, shaking and begging, “WAIT! No! Please don’t call them! Please! I won’t pull anything, I can explain!”

It was then that he noticed the bruising around the guys’ wrists, wrapping like cuffs around the base and up against the man’s palms. (He also thought he saw the dude’s… accessories twitch with panic, not unlike Obi when he would turn on the vacuum, but he dismissed it. Probably some cosplay functions or some shit.)

Shane put the phone down, his eyes wide with shock and curiosity. “Uh… okay. I don’t know if I can believe you, but maybe I will if you start with those bruises on your wrists…”

—

And that’s how Shane would learn that he was housing an escaped government experiment. (Did that make the guy— Ryan— a fugitive?) What experimenting was even being done on this dude. He didn’t seem to be any special. He winced in sympathy while rubbing ointment onto Ryan’s wrists, the man seated in his lap practically radiating warmth and comfort. Gosh. This dude really seemed just like a run of the mill, normal guy and to be caught up in something like this…

It should probably concern him more that he didn’t doubt the story, to be honest. Just… too much weird shit that would make it sound… off. He’d like to think that Ryan’s retelling of what’s happened is true to his perception, maybe just not what happened in real life. But the purpling on his skin that spoke of fettered bindings were too harsh evidence to ignore. Whether or not he was lying about being an escaped experiment, something was for certain. He had, in fact, escaped, but what? A kidnapping? An ambush? A trafficking attempt? Don’t get him wrong, Shane had… slightly checked out the dude, but not for any reason observing sexual attraction. He was just taking him in, and boy oh boy, he could see such nefarious deeds happening and he could see Ryan being capable of escape as well. Surely those muscles weren’t just for decoration.

Anyway, yeah. That’s how this complete stranger who’d bust into his house at 3AM was now staying with Shane. He wondered if, when he’d wake up that morning, he’d discover that it was all some cracked out dream. It didn’t feel like one, but who knows. He eyed the other figure in bed whose head was turned away from him and traced the shadows of the- the headband’s cat ears on the guy. Surely that must be uncomfortable, but I mean, maybe it’s a comfort thing? He didn’t see why he’d wear it to bed, but it’s whatever. It’s not hurting anyone.

He huffed in amusement as his eyes fell lower and looked at the moonlight reflecting off of Obi’s fur, the cat pressed into the crook of Ryan’s neck.

He noted Ryan’s soft snoring. Whoops. Uh, he should probably move Obi, but they both looked so comfortable, and Ryan’s body seemed to have untensed from whatever the hell he was alert to at the beginning.

Shane decided against moving or waking either of them. At this point, everyone in this house deserved their fucking rest.

—

When Shane woke up— genuinely woke up, at like, 8AM, he noted with slight relief that no, Ryan wasn’t just a dream. Not if the still sleeping figure beside him had anything to say, but alas, Shane himself had to get out of bed what with Obi meowing up a storm on top of him, begging for food. 

“Jesus, jesus, okay man, I’ll get you your food,” Shane laughed, and Obi quickly retreated into the kitchen, waiting for Shane to fill his bowl.

When Shane reentered his room, though, things seemed to turn for the worse, Ryan spazzing out on the bed letting loose keens and cries, hands and legs kicking out but seeming almost strapped together, like he was being tied up again. Hurt.

Shane immediately rushed to his side and began making calming shushing noises as he rubbed soothing circles into Ryan’s wrists. Trying to remind his body of just hours earlier when he realized he was safe in Shane’s apartment and didn’t have to worry about hands that tore him asunder and could instead relax in Shane’s giant, soft, gentle hold. “Shhhhhh,” Shane whispered, and eventually, Ryan’s struggles stopped.

With some time, he eventually settled back into the sheets, curling underneath the warm blanket, breathing softly.

When Shane himself calmed down and retreated to the bathroom to brush his teeth, he contemplated things.

“Jesus, Shane,” he said aloud to himself, “what have you just gotten yourself into?”

—

Shane sighed into his hands, rubbing the bridge of his nose, turning off the VPN and then shutting down the workplace monitor. Ryan had given Shane his full name— Ryan Steven Bergara— and he  _ did  _ find something… it’s just- the- they… They were all notices for Ryan, made three years ago. Ryan’s been missing for three fucking years and now here he was? In his apartment? How was he even supposed to proceed with this? 

When he drove home that day, he wondered how he was supposed to go about this. If he should tell Ryan that he’s missed out on three whole years of his life. He remembered the Arcadia news report, remembered Ryan’s parents crying on the screen, begging for their son back safe and sound but to no avail. 

‘The right thing to do would be to contact the police,’ Shane thought as he opened the door to his apartment. But as he eyed Ryan and Obi, asleep, curled up against each other on his carpet, he remembered Ryan begging for him not to. Not to turn to the police, and his story of escaping some facility full stoic-faced labcoats who’d kept him chained up and studied him for god knows how long, kept him drugged up to stop him from fighting the needles they stuck into him until one day, he woke up sober and no one was around, and he took the chance to bolt.

Ryan looked so soft, so ethereal and pure in the soft lamplight in the living room.

He didn’t know what to believe.

—

One thing that Shane learned quickly about Ryan was that, for as disarming as he could be, Ryan was a fiery tornado of his own. Beautiful, bright, but with his own bite and sarcastic charms; capable of holding his own against the world if he wanted. When asked, Ryan said he was always like that, unchanged over the course of his three missing years (he’d eventually told Ryan. It was his right to know. Shane had feared a breakdown of sorts, but Ryan would quickly accept, understand, and simply asked Shane to catch him up on the movies of the decades.). Shane was glad that despite those labcoat bastards, they couldn’t break Ryan.

—

“What brought this on?” Shane asked when Ryan had suddenly started asking questions— if there was a way for him to contact his family, maybe find his friends, get a place, get a job.

“It’s just,” Ryan sighed, tired, “I- Am I being a burden on you? I… I don’t want to keep leeching off of you and your income while doing nothing but… sitting around here. But I don’t know what to do and where to start. Hell. I’m still missing on the public record but I’m afraid if I go public,  _ they  _ will find me again.” The last few words were uttered softly, full of tremors that’d given way because of his fear. “I don’t know what to do, man…”

Shane could only stare sadly, but Ryan understood. He didn’t know what to do either.

—

One day, Shane’s curiosity got the better of him.

“Why don’t you take the cat ears off, man? I’ve seen you wear them all over the apartment everyday since you got here, don’t you think that it’s about time to remove them?”

Ryan raised his brows at Shane.

“I mean, they’ve gotta be uncomfortable,” Shane pressed, “right?”

The silence was heavy and Shane was almost sure Ryan would punch him any moment then, his face unreadable in the limelight of the lamp.

“Shane,” Ryan eventually said,” these… these aren’t removable…”

“What do you mean?” Shane huffed cluelessly and made his way towards Ryan to tug on the ears. Cute as they were, Shane was really concerned for him. “Of course they’re removab-”

Shane tugged. Instead of a headband, Ryan’s head followed, Ryan letting out a small yelp. “Ohmygodwhatthefuckimsosorrybutwhatthefuck-”

Ryan threw his head back, laughing as Shane stood mortified to the side of the couch. “These things are actually real? Like, they’re not gorilla glued to your head, right? These are just straight up connected to your head?”

Ryan dried a tear. “G-Gorilla glued?” he asked, still cackling. “Why would- why would I gorilla glue cat ears to my head-”

“-Reference, I’ll explain it later-” 

“No, I- I used to be normal, man, I got these during my time in the facility. Take a look if you’d like.”

Shane swallowed, and ruffled through Ryan’s hair carefully like he was glass. Slipping his fingers through the strands gently, and then gasped. Ryan was right. The blend between scalp and skin looked almost seamless, if not for the light scars. Shane could barely believe his eyes, brushing his fingers over the base of the cat ears again and again, subconsciously becoming more coarse and firm with every stroke. He didn’t notice how much Ryan was squirming with the attention and the touches at what were potentially new erogenous spots, not until, at least, Ryan mewled at a particularly firm press and Shane recoiled like he’d touched fire.

“Oh shit- fuck- sorry- I didn’t-”

“No- no- it’s fine- I should’ve-”

They both paused to let the other talk at the same time but every time one tried to speak, the other did so as well. By the third or fourth try, they both broke apart, laughing, and Shane tried his best to ignore the way that Ryan curled his legs against his chest, lightly trembled.

Fuck. He shouldn’t have been so quick to cross boundaries.

—

Things got a bit… distant after that, and Shane wasn’t sure who to blame. Maybe he’d seriously scared Ryan off after the incident with his ears. Maybe Shane was trying to give him some space. Either way, neither of them had actually talked in a while and Shane didn’t know how to fix it. He just wished things would go back to the way that they were.

For example, one morning, Shane woke up to Ryan being gone from the bed and in a flurry, he’d began looking around the apartment only to bump into him when trying to enter the bathroom. Ryan’s face quickly heated up and he fled to the living room before Shane could get a word in, having noticed the tear tracks on his face.

It’s probably best he leave Ryan alone.

He remembered the way that Ryan positively moaned under the ministrations of his hands.

He wished he could make him feel good like that again, if only it didn’t hurt  his beloved Ryan.

—

It all came to a boil one day, about two? Maybe three months after Ryan had first arrived at his place?

  
“I’m sorry. I’ll leave if you want me to. Just say the word and I’ll go,” Ryan had sadly uttered when Shane walked out into the living room.

  
“What?”

“On the phone. Last night. I heard you talking to your friends and uh- saying something about me getting out. I should’ve realized I overstayed my welcome.” Ryan swallowed. Quietly, he offered, “I can go?”

Shane got over his shock as quickly as humanly possible, flailing his hands around, gesticulations with no real direction. “What-! No! No, Ryan, god no! I never said I wanted you to leave, I- I was- I had hoped I could- I wanted-”

Ryan looked up at him with sad eyes.

“Ryan, honey, no,” Shane finally got out. “I never wanted you to leave. I was asking my friends for advice on arranging a day for us to just- go out together. Get you outside and breathe some fresh air and not… locked up here everyday like Rapunzel in her tower.”

He lowered his voice as he sat on the couch beside Ryan, but still giving him room so as to not make him uncomfortable. “To be honest, I thought you’d wanted me out of your way.”   
  
Ryan turned his eyes on Shane, disbelief visible. “Oh you’re shitting me.”

“I am positively Not Shitting You, Shane,” Ryan said, a small smile growing.

  
“But! I thought! You! You’ve been avoiding me! I caught you crying! I thought you wanted some space or that I- that I triggered some really bad memories on that day that I brushed your ears!”

“And  _ I _ thought  _ YOU  _ wanted space and were weirded out by me even further what with the ears and especially after you saw my boner!”

“You had a boner?!”

“YOU DIDN’T NOTICE?!”

They looked like the spiderman meme, pointing accusatory fingers at each other but in shock.

Eventually, they lifted the veil and hugged. God, they were such fucking idiots.

—

“Does this mean that you’re into me?”

“Oh fucking absolutely, Shane, are you blind?”

“Hey, man, it’s kinda hard to read your face when your head falls three feet below my line of sight. Are you sure they didn’t shave off 2 feet from your normal height in that lab?”

“Oh,  _ shut up,  _ Shane!”

—

“You know something that’s been on my mind since the incident?”

“What?”

“...Why is the government… manufacturing catboys…?”

“...I… I don’t know…”

“...”

“...”

Shane groped Ryan’s ass, who yelped having been straddling Shane’s hips. “Tax dollars well spent, I guess.”

Ryan chuckled as Shane carried him into the bedroom and then snuck his fingers below his waistband and began teasing the base of his tail. “Tax dollars well spent.”

**Author's Note:**

> Just something I hastily wrote. This was eventually going to involve smut but I didn't feel like it settled right anywhere in the fic so this is just going to be the first in a series of two unrelated fanfictions involving catboy Ryan, this one domestic, the next one smutty.
> 
> I don't know if it's right to say that this was inspired by Sonzaishinai's catboy Ryan drawing either because that is actually NSFW and this isn't, but the next will, but regardless, I agreed with the sentiment that we need to bring catboy Ryan back into the limelight and wrote this.
> 
> Assume that sometime along the line, we get confirmation that the the facility that originally held Ryan no longer desires to pursue him. And that Ryan reestablishes himself again with his friends and family and definitely not a missing person.
> 
> I didn't really plan this out, okay, this was going to be smut.
> 
> Enjoy.


End file.
